


play in the stars when the sun comes up

by brampersandon



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Juventus Turin, M/M, Multi, Road Trips, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-05
Packaged: 2018-11-23 16:30:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11406213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brampersandon/pseuds/brampersandon
Summary: Where Paulo is pliant and impulsive, Alessandro is firm and familiar. There's a common thread between them, something intangible that slips right between his ribs and nestles both of them close to his heart.





	play in the stars when the sun comes up

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heir/gifts).



> you say jump, i say how high.
> 
> title comes from _safe_ by bay ledges.

After the end of the season is Cardiff, and after Cardiff is international break, and after international break is—

Frankly, what happens after international break is nobody's business.

 

 

 

 

Selfishly, Gigi can't stand to stay in Turin. He's still learning how to shoulder his own disappointment; the very real possibility of having to face anyone else's is still too much.

He's not one to incessantly document his time off, but he does travel. He skips Sardinia, Ibiza, Menorca, anywhere he knows his friends will be. He puts himself on a social media hiatus, shuts off notifications for his messaging apps, lowers a hat over his face on a far off beach where nobody knows his name, and he sleeps.

The headlines would be too easy to write. _Old, Tired Buffon Naps Through His Holidays_.

Let them write, he thinks, rolling onto his stomach and pillowing his face in his arms. Here it's quiet. Here it's kind.

 

 

 

 

He gets two and a half weeks before his phone rings.

"Capí," the voice on the other end says, breezy and accusatory all at once. "Did you uninstall WhatsApp?"

"No," Gigi mutters. "I don't know how. I'm old."

Paulo gives one singular courtesy _ha_. He sounds exhausted; Gigi isn't about to do the mental math to figure out the time in Argentina, but it has to be late. "So, when do you get back home?"

Gigi squints at his drink, something pink and far too sugary that he's grown obsessed with since he got here. He rubs his thumb across the condensation of the glass. "The day before we report for preseason, probably."

"Mm, no, wrong answer. Our thing. Remember?"

He does. He remembers Alessandro and Paulo challenging each other to a free kick contest — he remembers the pang and pull deep in his gut, how he invited himself to be their keeper. They agreed to organize it after the season, and now— well. It's about that time, isn't it?

Before Gigi can make an excuse, tell him that they'll do it next season instead, Paulo cuts him off. "Ale's already put everything together. You have to come back next week."

So he calls him _Ale_ now.

Gigi blinks up at the cloudless sky from behind his sunglasses. He really has been here long enough. He owes this to the fans who wanted to see it. He needs to face reality eventually. A million reasons why he should, and yet it's Paulo's voice across international lines that tugs the strongest thread of all. "Okay," he relents. "I'll be there."

"Text me your flight info, I'll come get you from the airport so you don't have to see anyone."

He is too good to Gigi and they both know it.

 

 

 

 

Paulo picks him up in a jeep, which is strange.

Alessandro waves at him from the backseat, which is stranger.

"You've still got, like, clothes and your toothbrush and stuff, right?" Paulo asks, hauling Gigi's suitcase into the trunk for him. Gigi stares at him blankly, travel-weary and more than a little greasy feeling. "Great. Then we don't have to stop anywhere."

"What—"

"Come sit in the back with me," Alessandro calls, head hanging out the window. There's a crowd starting to form and Gigi feels like he'll combust before he figures out what exactly is happening here. "Make the boy chauffeur!"

They end up signing autographs and taking photos for nearly half an hour before Gigi finally collapses into the front seat, still bewildered. "Ready?" Paulo asks, and against all reason, Gigi nods.

They turn the wrong way out the airport.

They keep going.

 

 

 

 

"But the contest," Gigi tries once it's clear they're not heading back to Turin. "We were supposed to film—"

Alessandro leans far forward in his seat to wrap both arms around Gigi's shoulders and jostle him. "We will," he says, and Gigi can't count how many times he's heard that same reassurance from Alessandro over the years. They can, they will. Always, eventually. "There's just something else we need to do first."

Gigi tips his head back to catch Alessandro's gaze, still infuriatingly handsome even skewed sideways and upside down. "I don't trust you," he says, but the light in his eyes and smile over his lips betrays him. 

"Liar," Alessandro grins. "But! You shouldn't trust _him_. He's the mastermind here."

Paulo snorts. "Snitch." One arm hangs out the window, the other hand is loose but steady on the wheel. That kind of casual confidence makes Gigi forget how young he is sometimes. Paulo is never cocky; he's settled in his own skin, and he's driving this operation. "Relax," he tells Gigi. "It'll be fun."

 

 

 

 

The plan can't stay a secret for long.

Paulo has to turn on his GPS eventually, and Gigi needles him with enough questions that he finally comes out with it. He's rented a private beach house in Sicily for the three of them, they're driving down there, they're making a couple stops along the way. 

"I could have flown in and met you both there," he points out.

"You never would have agreed to it," Alessandro says, at the same time as Paulo squawks something about the _experience_. "And— yeah, the experience. The experience of sitting in a car for seven hours at a time."

He could give a few token complaints if he felt like it — he needs to get out and stretch his legs, he's tired of traveling, this is _terribly_ fuel-inefficient — but they would all fall flat. It's nice to lean back and chatter on, let someone else worry about the particulars of how and when they'll get to where they're going. 

 

 

 

 

  
They stop for the first night in a small town outside Rome, and sure enough, Paulo set everything up ahead of time. A discrete hotel, three separate rooms, reservations at a nearby restaurant where they've been promised privacy.

Gigi must be terrible at schooling his face out of some mixture of awe and shock, because Paulo glares at him while he stretches out his tired back in the hotel lobby. "What? I know how to plan a holiday."

"I've never doubted that," Gigi says, and he means _thank you_ , but he isn't quite there yet.

 

 

 

 

Separate rooms be damned, Gigi's only been out of the shower and tucked into bed for ten minutes when there's rapping at his door.

"I'm about to pass out," he tells Paulo. 

It fails to deter him. "I know, me too." He pushes past Gigi, makes his way to the bed. True to his word, he doesn't perch on the edge and spread his legs, doesn't sprawl across the covers and twist his hips — he flops onto his stomach and wriggles under the blankets, one arm out to beckon Gigi without looking.

Gigi crawls into bed and Paulo arranges himself around him, an arm snaking across his waist, a cheek resting on his chest. Gigi brushes an absent-minded kiss over the top of his head right as Paulo says, "I'm glad you came with us."

He laughs, bits of Paulo's hair getting into his mouth before he moves his head away. "Did I really have a choice?"

"Yeah, if you'd said _no, what the fuck is this, take me home_ , I would've. Promise."

Gigi doesn't buy it. "You'd still go on this trip with Alessandro? Alone?"

It takes a moment for Paulo's answer to come. His fingers drum against Gigi's side. "Yeah," he eventually says. "We've been messaging a lot since the end of the season." He tilts his head up, searching out Gigi's face through the darkness. "He was in Ecuador. I tried to get him to come to my charity match, he said he'd already be back in Turin by then, so— plans hatched, I guess."

Sleep weighs heavy on him. Maybe that's why his words are looser than usual, why he's indulging a darker thought. "And you included me because…?"

"Because I wanted to." He drops his head, presses his mouth to Gigi's collarbone before settling in again. The room is quiet but for the creaks of an older building, and Gigi's just about drifted off when Paulo murmurs, "Things have been hard. I knew seeing you would help."

Gigi's thoughts are out of reach through half-consciousness. All he can do is card a hand through Paulo's hair, stroke a lazy thumb over his ear. "It helps," he agrees. For all his imposed solitude since the final, he knows that can only heal him partly. Close off, rebuild, open up again. 

 

 

 

 

Paulo insists over and over that he _could_ do the second leg all in one day, and the only reason he's built in another stop is for the old men in the car and their aching backs and their endless whining. 

"We're the only thing holding him back," Alessandro says with a straight face when they make their third stop of the day for Paulo to get out and run a couple laps at the side of the road. He says his legs get restless. He glares at them for laughing and it only makes them laugh harder, doubled over and leaning on one another. 

It sparks through Gigi like the beginnings of wildfire, as it does every time they reconnect: How much he misses Alessandro, how seamlessly their edges always blended together. How happy he is to be with him again. How many questions he still has about the particulars that led them here.

 

 

 

 

They walk the river in Cosenza together, the three of them with Paulo in between, and Gigi stays quiet. He listens to them talk, the way they bat back and forth with an ease like they've been friends for years. It's a far cry from the first time they met, Paulo with his shaking hands and over-exuberant chattering, Alessandro with his practiced _who, me? I'm your idol? But I'm just a guy!_ modesty and charm. 

It was funny then. Gigi teased both of them about it separately.

It's different now.

He draws an arm over Paulo's shoulders, and Alessandro does the same, and what was meant to be a brief gesture stills in the moment. Alessandro squeezes his bicep at the same time as Paulo looks up at him with a sly little smile.

The sun continues its steady descent below the horizon as Gigi feels something just as bright and burning lift in his own chest. 

 

 

 

 

Paulo doesn't worm his way into his room that night, doesn't even try. Maybe he's doing it to Alessandro instead. Gigi slips a hand beneath the covers, and he wonders.

 

 

 

 

"Of course it's Palermo," Gigi says, the lazy grin stretching his words. He's sprawled across the backseat and kicks one leg out to nudge Paulo with his foot. 

"Palermo has the best beaches, that's just a fact." He's never managed to let go of his fondness for the ancient city by the sea, nor for the pink jersey that first brought him here. It's cute. 

Alessandro stirs when they exit motorway, picking his head up from where it lolled against the window. He squints out at the scenery, then back at Gigi. "I thought we were going further south?"

"Don't look at me," Gigi yawns.

Paulo snaps his gum defensively. "You guys are snobs." He pitches his voice higher in a poor impression of Alessandro: "If it's not Forte Village, I'm not going!" Before Gigi can remind him that _he's_ the one who spent his holidays last year at Forte Village, not them, Paulo says, "Also, I have the hook up here, so don't give me any shit until you've seen the place."

They've had too many days of driving. Gigi can tell Paulo is on edge, ready to _be there_ already — and maybe more than a little anxious for it to be as perfect as he's repeatedly promised them. So he sits up straight in his seat again, reaches forward to rub one hand up and down Paulo's arm. Paulo shifts his grip on the wheel to catch Gigi's hand briefly, a single pulse before he drops away again.

From the passenger seat, Alessandro glances between them and says nothing.

 

 

 

 

"Told you."

He's _inordinately_ pleased with himself as Gigi and Alessandro explore the house. It isn't too extravagant — nothing like the eight to twelve guest villas they drove by on their way here — but it's gorgeous, all white marble and polished sandalwood. Just enough room for the three of them to spread out and get comfortable in their own space after days of forced proximity. And, most importantly, there's a back porch that opens right up to the beachfront, carefully landscaped a mile out on either side for privacy.

Paulo settles a box gently onto the kitchen island, starts unloading wine. "You like it?"

Alessandro doesn't answer, only looks back with a wild and grateful smile as he kicks off his shoes, pulls off his shirt, drops it all by the doorway and goes out to lay facedown in the sand.

"He does," Gigi assures him with a deep, rumbling laugh. "So do I. You know how to pick 'em."

Before Paulo can shoot back with anything lascivious, Gigi leans across the island and kisses him — the first time he's been able to do it properly since their reunion. Paulo abandons the wine, curls his fingers into Gigi's hair instead.

"I missed you," Gigi admits. He feels Paulo's smile before he sees it.

 

 

 

 

That first night they cook a massive spread, spend hours lounging around the table with good food and better wine and card games before Paulo excuses himself to his room. It's his weekly Skype call with his mom, he explains to Alessandro without a trace of shame. He's religiously stuck to it for as long as Gigi's known him, and he expects he always will. 

"So," Alessandro says, and Gigi already knows how this conversation ends.

He doesn't follow that up, only looks up and lifts his eyebrows, indicating the second story of the home where Paulo is holed away, chattering on. Gigi shrugs in bashful acquiescence. It shouldn't be surprising. Alessandro knows him well. He watched Gigi grow into his weaknesses as he aged, and Paulo fits neatly in with all of them.

Gigi doesn't know how to explain that it's a thing, but it isn't, but it is, but— it's complicated. It's Juventus. Surely Alessandro remembers what they're like. He hasn't been gone that long.

"He's a good person." _Person_ , Alessandro says, not _kid_. He smiles at Gigi with all his teeth. "And you're alright too, so I can see it working."

Gigi flings a couple playing cards at him.

They tidy up the kitchen together in amicable silence until Alessandro leans back against the sink, reaches out to hook his fingers into Gigi's pocket as he passes. He catches him, pulls Gigi into his orbit. Retired for years or not, Alessandro will always be in some small part his captain, so he stills. Alessandro's smile is indulgent and eyes half-lidded when he asks, "Can I kiss you?"

So he does remember.

"Always," Gigi answers easily, and if he were a more self-conscious man, he'd be embarrassed by just how much he means it.

When he ducks his head to meet Alessandro's mouth, warmth spreads low in Gigi's stomach like blood in water. Where Paulo is pliant and impulsive, Alessandro is firm and familiar. There's a common thread between them, something intangible that slips right between his ribs and nestles both of them close to his heart.

 

 

 

 

They pass the days throwing one another into the waves, lying in the surf, falling asleep in the shade, eating all the food two-thirds of them shouldn't have and slowly chipping away at the veritable stockpile of wine Alessandro brought along. Everything is sun-warmed and lazy, slow and sweet. Gigi spends one night sucking Alessandro off in the opulent shower, pinching his hip when he laughs about how it's just like their old locker room trysts — and the next night he has Paulo in his bed, sinking down onto his cock, falling forward and letting Gigi clasp a hand over his mouth to keep him quiet.

It's not like any of it is secret. Alessandro knows, and Gigi's sure Paulo, with his eagle eyes and overactive imagination, has connected the dots as well.

Gigi is the rickety bridge between them, present connecting past and future, and every time he imagines that line being crossed his head feels over-crowded and his blood thrums in his veins. 

He wants it, he's sure he does, he thinks they would too— it's just a matter of how.

 

 

 

 

Paulo can't convince either of them to go for a swim after dessert, but they do sit on the back porch and watch him, the pool of amber light growing starker as twilight slips into nighttime. There's a bitter bite rising in the air, the perfect sort of weather for baring souls, and Gigi can feel the question coming before it does.

"It's your last season, right?"

He keeps his eyes out over the coastline. He can just make Paulo out, sitting in wet sand and letting waves wash over him as they roll in. "All but certain," he says. 

Alessandro reaches a hand across the table, rests his fingers on Gigi's arm. "You can always play a couple more years somewhere else, you know. You'd have better luck finding a team than me. Anyone would take you."

He doesn't want to tell Alessandro that the circumstances couldn't be more different. He is lucky, extraordinarily so, and he knows it. His end has always been entirely in his control, something Alessandro was never afforded. A month doesn't pass without Agnelli or Pavel telling him to just say the word and they'll extend his contract. They don't _want_ him to go. Nobody does. But—

"I think," Gigi starts. He breathes into the silence punctuated only by waves and Paulo's distant humming. When he speaks again, it's soft enough that Alessandro has to lean in to hear. "I think I'm ready for it to be over, and that's what scares me. I never wanted to be ready."

Alessandro nods at him, chin pillowed on one hand. "You wanted it to just… happen to you," he murmurs.

It's unflattering, but it's true. More than a few times, whenever he feels small and selfish, he's thought that it would be easier for it to be forced on him. Winding down naturally and greeting the end of his playing years as a friend is how it _should_ be for everyone, that's the noble way to go, but it's difficult in its own way. He couldn't have expected that.

Every moment of Alessandro's final match is still vivid in his memory, all the tears, all the scarves at his feet. Gigi doesn't profess to be anywhere near Alessandro's level in the eyes of the people of Turin, but he knows it'll be more of the same. Why would he want to take his final steps off the pitch anywhere else?

"I'm ready," he repeats with more conviction this time. 

Before he knows it, Alessandro's out of his chair, half-kneeling next to Gigi's and wrapping his arms around him. "Retirement's not so bad," he mutters into Gigi's hair. "You'll hate it a lot less than I do. You _love_ laying around doing nothing."

"I do," Gigi laughs, and when he tips his head back Alessandro kisses him, fingertips tracing over his jaw.

Caught up in the moment, neither of them notice Paulo's approach until he clatters up the steps to the porch. He pauses at the top and grins at them, frozen where they are.

"Invite me next time," he says, one brow arched. 

Gigi knows Paulo well, and he knows it isn't a joke.

Paulo grabs his towel, scrubs it over his hair before wrapping it around his shoulders. "It's cold. I'm gonna shower. Meet you downstairs in ten?"

Blearily, they nod, and he breezes past them without another word.

 

 

 

 

He's nothing if not a boy of his word.

Ten minutes later he clamors downstairs in an overly large sweater and overly small shorts, grabs a glass of water and settles in a chair across from the couch they've taken to.

Paulo's eyes rove between the pair of them, like it's an appraisal. Maybe it is. "I want you," he says, suddenly and plainly. "Both of you. I figured it was obvious, but neither of you seem to want to do anything about it, so." He tips his head to the side, baring his neck, eyes alight with something inquisitive and dangerous. "How do we make that happen?"

All these years apart and Gigi can still feel out what Alessandro is thinking. He doesn't need to ask. He only glances over for confirmation and finds a look on Alessandro's face that he knows well, the look he gets when there's a new challenge before him. It's been a while since the last time he saw it — in Berlin, with Canna, the glow of the World Cup settling over their skin — but the familiarity shocks into him all at once. Gigi refocuses on Paulo. "All you have to do is ask," he tells him, voice as deep as the waves breaking over rocks in the distance.

Paulo doesn't miss a beat. He leans forward and points with his glass first at Gigi, then at Alessandro. "Would the two of you fuck me, please?"

Alessandro lets out a long breath next to him and shifts in his seat.

Even so, he's the one to answer. "Come here," he says, voice dropping into the command of a captain, and if it sends a skitter of desire up Gigi's spine, he can only imagine what it does for Paulo.

 

 

 

 

The thought crossed Gigi's mind a few times throughout their trip — _maybe Paulo and Alessandro already have_ — but once they get Paulo upstairs, he quickly learns the answer is a resounding no. Alessandro is tender with him, gentle almost, and Gigi has to be the one to tell him: _no, don't be shy, he likes it harder, he likes it a little rough_.

"Like this," Gigi says silkily, winding fingers through Paulo's hair and pulling back hard, curving his back into a taut bow as Alessandro works him open. 

Most everything else remains unspoken between them. They communicate with mouths on each other's skin, and if it's sometimes clumsy or uncomfortable as they find their rhythm, that's life. Paulo chases their touch desperately, bending and twisting so that he's always with both of them at once no matter what. He wraps his arms around Gigi's shoulders as Alessandro slides inside, supported between the two of them, eyes blown wide and dark.

Alessandro walks one hand up Paulo's spine until it lands between his shoulder blades and he pushes, still gentle but more insistent. "Don't leave your captain out," he drawls, because he must know it'll work on Paulo.

And it does. Paulo drops down to support himself and lets Gigi fuck his mouth, pinning him between the two of them. 

Gigi should have known better. It was never a matter of how, only when. Paulo beat him to it and set the plan in motion long before Gigi ever even caught on. He curls his hand in Paulo's hair again and pushes in a little further, nudging the back of Paulo's throat, a shudder washing over him. It's nothing they haven't done before, but it's different with Alessandro across from him, fingers digging bruises into Paulo's hips as he fucks him hard enough to rock him forward and take Gigi just that much deeper. Stars prick the edges of his vision. Alessandro leans as far forward as he can, whispers effusive praise near Paulo's ear. Between Paulo's choked off moans and Alessandro lifting his eyes to meet Gigi's, he's done for.

When he gets his bearings again, he finds Paulo slumped forward, one hand shakily holding him up and the other between his legs. Gigi runs his fingers lazily over his cheek, breathing still ragged.

"You should turn him over," he says. Alessandro pulls out, slow and deliberate, and Gigi leans all the way down to close his mouth over Paulo's, drinking up his needy little noises of protest. 

Once he's on his back, Gigi kneels next to them, strokes Paulo's cock with one hand and wraps the other delicately around his throat. It rips a groan out of Alessandro that turns into a strangled cry when Paulo grabs his wrist, eyelashes fluttering dark against his skin as Gigi tightens his grip. Alessandro's hips stutter when Paulo comes messy across his stomach, gasping as Gigi lets go.

"Jesus," Alessandro hisses, both hands on Paulo's waist to keep him steady as he fucks him through it.

Gigi cradles Paulo's face with one hand. He's whimpering, over sensitive, and Gigi can see the flash of concern over Alessandro's face. "He likes it," Gigi assures him. With his free hand he runs up from the base of Alessandro's spine to the nape of his neck. "Alessà," he murmurs, leaning in to whisper hot against the shell of his ear. "Fuck him."

He doesn't need to be told twice. Gigi presses lips and teeth and tongue to Alessandro's jawline, neck, shoulder, anything he can reach as Alessandro picks his pace back up. Somewhere beneath them Paulo turns his cheek against Gigi's palm, babbling breathy little words of encouragement until Alessandro breaks, heart hammering a frantic beat as Gigi sucks on his pulse point.

 

 

 

 

They are, categorically speaking, a goddamn mess.

Gigi manages to get up for warm washcloths to clean them up, but it's a struggle. Paulo is boneless, breathless, can barely sit up without collapsing back down again. It's his room they ended up in — of course it is — and when Alessandro tries to roll out of the bed, Paulo stretches out one weak hand to grab for him. "Stay," he whines. "Both of you. C'mon."

Alessandro doesn't even attempt to fight it, falling back into the bed like a bag of bricks. "Capí," Paulo croons at Gigi as he tries to gather up all the discarded sheets and pillows, casualties of their frantic madness.

"I'm not going anywhere," Gigi says. He draws a blanket over them, tosses a few pillows toward their heads. By the time he crawls into bed, they've arranged themselves in a spoon, one of Alessandro's arms laying lazily over Paulo's chest. Gigi tries to replicate their position before, curling up to face Paulo, but he's having none of it.

"Roll over," Paulo yawns. "Let me hold you."

Alessandro barks out a sleepy, disbelieving laugh. "Yeah Gigi, let the kid hold you."

It's ridiculous, but— Gigi's too bone-tired to argue. He turns onto his other side and lets Paulo nestle up behind him, one arm tight around his waist. He feels Paulo press a line of soft kisses along his back, Alessandro reach across him to brush his fingertips up his side. They're here, they're both here.

"Thanks for coming, guys," Paulo says, then laughs at himself. "Ha. Coming."

"Hilarious," Gigi murmurs into the pillows, but Alessandro's snickering too. A beat and he closes one hand over Paulo's, interlocking their fingers. "Thank you," he finally says. "For making this happen." The trip. _This_. All of it.

 

 

 

 

Two days later they hit the road again, the first training before preseason looming in the distance.

Everything takes on a new shine when it's the last. Last first day back at Vinovo, last trip overseas with the team, last new crop of players for him to help settle in, last chance to grasp at glory. Gigi leans his head the window and watches Italy fly by, listens to Paulo and Alessandro talk over Paulo's awful music. Every so often one of them will reach over to touch him, bring him back to them.

"Don't think about it too much," Alessandro tells him when they stop somewhere near Salerno. Three rooms, of course, but they've somehow all ended up in Paulo's while he gets ready for bed. "Don't get distracted. Just enjoy it."

It isn't condescending, Alessandro isn't playing the older and wiser card — if anything, he sounds fond and exasperated, because he knows how Gigi can live too much in his own head. Gigi presses him back against the bed as he kisses him, and from the bathroom doorway Paulo yells around his toothbrush that it isn't fair when they start without him.

 

 

 

 

Three hours away from Turin, Gigi sits up with a start and wheels around to face Alessandro. "The free kick contest."

"Scheduled to film in September," Alessandro shouts, arms spread wide. "Surprise! We lied."

He's busy trying to twist in his seat and smack Alessandro when Paulo says, casual as anything, "I have some ideas for the loser's forfeit."

Gigi bets he does.

 

 

 

 

They drop Alessandro back off at the airport — he's heading to the States early, he'll be at their first match — and when Paulo drives Gigi home, he doesn't let him out right away.

He puts the car into park, slides his sunglasses up into his hair and turns to face Gigi. "Two more years."

"One," Gigi says blankly.

"Two," Paulo shoots back. "We're winning the Champions League this year and you're sticking around."

He winces. Paulo really does read too much.

"At least one," he acquiesces, "Maybe two."

"Definitely two."

He leans across the center console to meet Gigi halfway, fingers curling in the fabric of his shirt and trying to pull him even closer. It's not smart to bank on the smallest probability, but he isn't about to tell Paulo that. So he gives in, cups Paulo's face in both hands and tugs him into the kiss. 

He's ready, but maybe he could still wait.

**Author's Note:**

> \- unless juve wins the ucl, [gigi is hanging it all up at the end of the 2017-18 season](http://www.goal.com/en/news/723/serie-a/2017/06/12/36315722/buffon-999-percent-certain-over-retirement). start crying early, start crying often.
> 
> \- [here's adp challenging paulo to a free kick contest and gigi inviting himself along](https://twitter.com/gianluigibuffon/status/858428327211741184), i really wish i was kidding on that one.
> 
> \- special shout out to the Paulo Dybala Seduces Older Men Squad, you're all terrible and i love it. [THERE ARE DOZENS OF US](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKie-vgUGdI)
> 
> \- as always, catch me on [tumblr](http://strikerbacks.tumblr.com) if you'd like, and thanks very much for reading!! ♥


End file.
